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Get ready folks, because this is going to be a good topic. Why? Because it is a great topic. So what is this all about anyway? Glad you asked.
You see, if you ask me, fiction has too many good role models. Now, that statement may sound funny, but it’s true. There are too many great protagonists. You wish you could be like them and reading the book makes you want to at least try (which is a good thing and we do need that type of book quite often). The problem is you never see the character grow. He/She always makes the right decisions and you never get to see how they got there. Normally, you really can’t love these characters as much as the ones you see struggling.
The solution is obviously imperfect characters (and maybe even downright nasty ones). They can either start out that way and get better (which I would suggest is how most of these books should go), or they can always remain bad, or they can degrade to that level. We see then that there are many ways to work with bad characters and only one way to work with perfect characters. Obviously we need more bad characters.
Don’t worry! All is not lost. That is why I created this topic. To brainstorm these enchanting characters and what we can do with them. By posting on and reading this topic you will become suddenly aware of some amazing characters that have been knocking on your door for years asking to come in. You will begin to drown in imagination and start seeing twists and rollercoaster rides that could make your book really spectacular. And best of all, you will be provided the opportunity to rant your opinion bad heroes and messed up protagonists. You can say or ask what ever you want so long as it stick to the general topic. I’ll put down a few questions to start with though.
1. What are some of your favorite bad heroes and messed up protagonists? Why?
2. How can you make your bad heroes and messed up protagonists so attractive that your reader will absolutely fall in love with them and break their arm and die because they are such amazing characters despite their faults?
3. Why are bad heroes and messed up protagonists bad (besides just original sin). What could bring out and flame into fire their faults?
4. What are some great ways to use bad heroes and messed up protagonists to make knock-on-the-floor points?
5. How does a messed up main character differ from a messed up minor character?And if you want to suggest a start to a bad hero or messed up protagonist, we could all work on him/her and try to develop something really interesting.
So then, comment away!
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I have a friend who’s MC is bitter, spiteful, and revengeful at the beginning of the book. And yet I love her. Part of it is that I can see the character’s past; what has made her like this, and I sympathize. Part of it is that the character is hurting, though she doesn’t show it (and covers it with bitterness, etc.). And part of is is that I know there is more there; there is kindness and loyalty, even if she isn’t showing it yet. And she could do great things and change if only she had the right motivation.
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
My favorite messed up protagonist? Sydney Carton. Bitter, cynical, lazy, slovenly, drunken— the list goes on and on.
Yet he’s a great character because we all know what it’s like to want something we cannot obtain (Lucie in this instance) and to work incredibly hard at the most thankless job imaginable and still see nothing come of it.
Or even worse, see those who don’t work nearly as hard as you (Stryver) rise above you without a struggle, and leave you half drowning in their wake.We all know what it is to be (or at least feel like) a failure. And Sydney never got over those faults. But in the end, he wasn’t a failure.
Rant number one— check.
My other favorite messed up protagonist: Edmond Dantes. He started out as the perfect kind of person— the guy you admire and strive to be like. He was innocent, cheerful, hard working, dutiful, and affectionate.
His betrayal and imprisonment changed all that. He became hard—cruel, even. He forgot how to laugh. The only part of him that went unchanged was his dogged determination to do whatever it was he set out to do.
He almost became a villain.
But since we know what made him that way, we love him still. Even if we hate the way he’s gone, and the way he’s going, we remember the Count when he was Edmond, and that memory stays with us. All the love we bore him in the beginning of his story is there still, no matter how cruel he becomes.
And even though—when he finally realizes that it is no man’s place to take vengeance outside the law—he is still twisted and messed up with all his long years of bitterness, we know everything’s going to be all right. It won’t be the same, but it will be all right.Rant number two—check.
I love writing characters like this. I don’t have many, but I enjoy them intensely.
Good topic, Daeus.
Yep, Edmond’s number one for me. And that’s a good point about how much his early innocence had to do with how much you love him when he turns vengeful. What about those who start out bad though? What hope is there for them to be loved by the reader? Or, do you not want them to be loved? What then? Something must be attractive.
Oh, and Luigi Vampa was super fantastic in this regard too. Not to mention that he just has a fantastic name.
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Yes! His name fits him perfectly. 😀 I think a lot of the reason I liked Luigi was because he was obviously so refined and educated, so it was intriguing to imagine how he fell to where he was, and what he had been before.
In regards to those who start out bad, I would say you still have to understand why they’re like that in the first place.
That, or they have to be such a fascinating, charming, emotionally attention snatching character that you love them anyway for their complexity. Luigi would fit into that last category.It says what he had been before. A Shepard if you remember. And he didn’t start out bad. He was a perfect little innocent fellow who played his flute through the meadow as he watched the sheep. You did read the unabridged version, didn’t you?
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Hm. I guess I missed that part.
No, I didn’t read the unabridged version. I wanted to so badly, but we looked everywhere (and I mean everywhere) and couldn’t find it.
So I picked up an abridged version and read about the abridging process, and it sounded like it was only stylistic editing. Well, turns out I was wrong, so I’m still looking. *sigh*
I’ll find it one of these days.So what are some of the ways to make a ‘bad’ guy charming and still show he’s bad?
I guess you could give him an unusual and amusing wit— that could be a thing, for starters.Okay. I like that. So let’s do this character thing. Let’s say we’ve got this guy who’s… hm… let’s say he’s the keeper of the king’s Treasury, and incidentally a thief. Now how do we make him charming? You tell me.
Yeah, I think abridgment edits out some things. You get the same story, just not to its full depth. That’s unfortunate but I’m sure the abridgment was still good. You can get the full thing from the library (If the columbus system goes that far south.) If not, you might be able to have it delivered to a local public or college library through the state library of Ohio (a fantastic resource). The full one I read was about 1180 pages.
A thieving charming treasurer. I like that character (well, in a way). One thing that could really help him is if he is generous with his money. Sure, he steals way more, but he’s not stingy. He could also be a huge flatterer. This is where the wit can come in to make him sound impressive and to help him avoid tying himself in knots. He could also steal in some really unique ways. After all, even though he is the treasurer, he can’t just walk up to the safe whenever he wants and unload a bunch of money and then just re-lock the safe and walk away. He could be a master of disguises, distractions, and deception. He could even rob in such an absolutely ridiculous way that it leaves the reader flat on the floor in a fit of laughter. That could really work. You should use him. You have kings in your stories.
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Ooh… don’t tempt me, Daeus. I have too many characters already. 😛
That’s great though. I may just have to. Oh dear…
I just realized we did that backwards. We should have started with a charming good guy and made him villainly.
You start it this time. 😀
Oh, this …. this will be fun.
I’m so sorry Walter. I’m really really sorry.
Walter was is 19. Ever since he was 0 he has lived in south Africa. He is semi-social, not a ton of friends, but mostly pretty good ones. He love animals and is constantly thinking about how to put all of Africa’s amazing and bizarre animals to good use. He also loves target shooting. He has a mom, a dad, and two sisters, one of whom is older than him by two years and one who is younger by two years. His dad works for the government as a police officer. Walter daydreams a little too much and he is always thinking of fantastical ideas. He likes to take long walks alone. He lives in a middle class neighborhood very close to both a slum and a very wealthy neighborhood. Walter has very keen perception of other peoples psychological makeup but he has a hard time thinking about himself. He is a little visionless and while he is a very polite and obedient fellow, he is not especially driven by any clear concept of good. His best friend is the son of a zulu (by ancestry) magician.
Hopefully that’s enough to go on.
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Hm… I like that. I like that. I really do. Let’s see… let’s see where I can take this…
Oh boy, I’m too tired to avoid cliches tonight.
Let’s say Walter was out on one of his long walks, and he comes back to find his home burned by terrorists and his family all presumably dead. Sufficiently tragic?
He’s not exactly the type to go off hunting terrorists on his own, so he leaves his erstwhile home and goes and gets himself a job as an intern in the office of whatever officials rule South Africa.
Walter doesn’t speak about his loss to anyone— it closed him up even more, and he’s made sure no one can get through his armor plated shell. The worst of it is he’s taken to smiling— a slow, wide eyed, dimpled smile that barely shows his teeth and leaves his eyes untouched— cold.To all outward appearances he has accepted his loss, but nothing could be further from the truth. His heart is black with bitter anger, and he channels that anger into his work, hoping that someday he will gain enough influence in the government to find the terrorists who murdered his family and bring them to justice.
So he does. After a period of many years he has built up a name for himself, and has more power than he ever dreamed of. He handles it with cold, calculating efficiency, and collects hard men about him who think nothing of taking a life for a sufficient sum of money.
And he sends those men out secretly to hunt down every terrorist they can find. He himself is above suspicion, but his men are all scoundrels below the law, and do the dirty work while he directs them from his position of power.
By the end of the year, hundreds of people have died beneath the guns of Walter’s men, many of them innocent, many of them women and children. The men are ruthless in their hunting, and Walter knows it. But he rejoices savagely that the families of those who made him suffer should be made to know the same suffering.He has become the enemy.
Nooo, not Walter! Oh, well Walter, sometimes sad things happen.
The two things I’m wondering is why the terrorists killed his family (and if they are still out to kill him) and how his best friend fits into all this?
The next thing we need to figure out is some unusual ways to make bad heroes lovable. We know we can make them snarky brilliant and we know we can make them rich and unstoppable. We can also make them highly mysterious and mesmerizing. But there has got to be more options. How about the bad hero who is passionate and loving (but not a d’artagnan please. If I spelled that right)? What about the fearful bad hero who is persecuted? How would such characters work? What are other options?
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I’ll read the rest of these comments later, but for now, I have to say:
your reader will absolutely fall in love with them and break their arm and die
–I laughed so hard.
That made me laugh too, Amanda. 😀
Okay Daeus, now that we’ve got the premise, let’s flesh it out.
Honestly, I forgot about his best friend.
We could say he ends up fighting against Walter when Walter becomes ruthless… that could illustrate how bitter Walter has become. To flesh that out further, we could also say that the best friend has a family member in the terrorist group, and Walter suspected his best friend (the guy needs a name— Alex?) suspected Alex of collaborating to kill his family. But in reality Alex disagrees with the terrorists strongly, and Walter’s suspicion and hatred are unjust.
So Alex is the ‘good guy’ in this situation, I guess. We could even use that to contrast the right ways to deal with hardship vs. the wrong way to deal with hardship— aka, Walter’s way.
And maybe we could have it so Walter’s men end up killing Alex’s family, and Alex confronts Walter… I don’t know. We’ll fiddle around with it.I’m getting the feeling that Walter as a villain would fall into the category of mesmerizing. His tragedy cured him of all shyness, and he’s become cold and charming— perfectly polite, but completely ruthless. If he can’t use you to some end, get out of his way, or one day you’ll wake up with a knife in your back.
But what are your thoughts on this?If anyone reads the Tintin books or has seen the movie, Captain Haddock is my best example of this.
And what’s ridiculous is that he’s so totally messed up, while Tintin is the flawless boy scout. And they’re best friends. XD
And, on a side note, I really love his creative curse-words. He’s expanded my vocabulary in a good way.
Bashi-bazouk.
Iconoclast.
Pyromaniac.
Ectoplasm.
I could go on… but I have other things to do…
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